Nick Seibel, publisher and editor of the Silver City Daily Press, covers top stories each week on the Silver City Report. This week we hear about Tyrone getting a new water system, COBRE School District making administrative changes and an event to raise funds for local nonprofit organizations. This is a transcript of the conversation.
Susan Morée:
So Nick, Tyrone replaced its water system. Tell us about it.
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, they're just in the beginning phases of this project. Of course, Tyrone was originally a company town built by Phelps Dodge for their Tyrone open pit mine, which is southwest of Silver City. And when that was built back in the 1960s, the water system was laid with a pipe called transite, which is made with a combination of concrete and asbestos. As that infrastructure has aged, those pipes are brittle, they're difficult to repair, and obviously you have the issues with the asbestos in the pipes when you go and disturb them or break them. And so, the Tyrone Water and Wastewater Association, with a combination of legislative funding and loans and grants from the state to replace the entire water system. $7 million is about what they'll be spending to do that and rehabilitate the water tank for the community. It's a big project, and as they lay these new pipes, they're just going to leave the old ones right there in the ground and abandon them in place so they don't have to deal with the asbestos disposal.
Susan Morée:
And COBRE is going through some big changes. Tell us about that.
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, Cobre School District, of course, has been in upheaval for quite some time. The most recent thing, last week, the school board, well, the school district... suspended finance director Frank Ryan and placed him on administrative leave for the rest of the year and hired a company called Vertex Education as a fiscal services contractor to help the district sort out their finances. The districtis several years behind on its annual audits that are due to the state and they've also conducted a couple of forensic audits looking at some misspending going back several years. Basically, the state told the district, okay, you've got to get some help, get this sorted out, threatened things including withholding some of the district's funding from the state or even more dire outcomes. So, on a positive note, the COBRE district did vote to selectVerenice Gutierrezto be the next permanent superintendent of the school district. Officially, she starts on June 15th with a two-year contract and an annual salary of $145,000. But she's also going to be basically on call for the district before she formally starts to help them sort through some of this finance stuff and make sure that things are ready to go when she steps into the job this summer.
Susan Morée:
And there is a day of giving. Talk about that.
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, it actually stretches for a couple of weeks online, but the Grant County, well, the Grant County Community Foundation, now the GilaCommunity Foundation, has organized an event called Give Grandly, which is a big day of giving that takes place in Gough Park in Silver City. That happened last Saturday. This year, they have joined forces with the Community Foundation of Southern New Mexico there in Las Cruces for the Southern New Mexico Giving Day. The Las Cruces component of that is actually this weekend. And the nonprofit organizations participating from your part of the state could come up to Silver City for our Give Grandly last weekend. And some organizations from Silver City will be down in Las Cruces this weekend. But it's basically an opportunity to raise the profile of a bunch of nonprofits that are doing important work all across our region. And kind of exciting to see some of those resources being pooled to kind of help everybody out.
Susan Morée:
Okay, and where can readers find more about these stories?
Nick Seibel:
You can find all these stories, including the giving link for the Day of Giving, at scdailypress.com.
Susan Morée:
All right, thanks so much.
Nick Seibel:
Have a great one.
